George Clooney On Fatherhood, Playing A Dad & UFOs

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George Clooney is one of Hollywood's smartest stars, a political and human rights activist who can charm with his knowledge as easily as his wit. He often finds himself asking the big questions in life, like how we can create jobs, solve humanitarian crises, and whether aliens are up to date on our latest consumer technology.

"I keep thinking: Now that every single human being on earth has a camera phone, where are all those UFO pictures?" he says in an interview with Esquire. "Remember you used to see those pictures. Some guy just happened to have a Polaroid when the UFOs appeared? Either it was all bullshit, or my theory is that the martians have decided, 'Don't go down there, man. All those fuckers have cameras now.'"

As for another pressing question: will George Clooney have kids? No. He's said so. But it doesn't mean the questions about his paternal aspirations will ever stop coming. Especially now that he's in the midst of promoting his acclaimed new dramedy, "The Descendants."

How, tabloids like to ask, can he play a dad without actually being a dad? Easy, he tells Esquire.

"I've been a child of somebody's. I've been an uncle. All my friends have kids. I'm around kids," he said. "I have an understanding of what it is. And I also have a really good script that informs me what is required of this father. Because, for the most part, the father I play in 'The Descendants' doesn't resemble any of the fathers that I know. I don't have friends who have the kind of issues that this guy has. So a lot of it is just the information you get from the screenplay."

Another point to make: in "The Descendants," Clooney isn't even playing a very good dad. Calling himself the "backup parent" in the film's introduction, he's thrust into the big job when his wife enters a coma. Plenty of mistakes ensue, which may be why one of his two on-screen daughters in the film, 11-year old Amara Miller, doesn't exactly rave about his potential as a dad.

Maybe that had something to do with his leniency when it came to her sweets intake.

"It was fun to work with Amara because it was her first film and she didn't know that you would have to do a lot of takes," Clooney told reporters at the premiere. "So the first time they brought a bowl of ice cream out, she pounds the whole bowl of ice cream. And I just let her do it and like seven takes later she's eaten seven bowls of ice cream. She literally didn't make it to work the next day."